Due to tight space requirements in aircraft and other vehicles, a substantial amount of time and energy is required to maintain parts buried under other subsystem and structures. Duct sections and the like are traditionally secured using worm clamps, Wiggins connectors, V-Band clamps and other such connection schemes. Actuation of these components requires a significant amount of space (i.e., a “clear volume” of surrounding space perpendicular to the duct surface) for a wrench, ratchet, or other specialized tool.
To address this issue, some duct interconnect schemes incorporate one or more captured components—i.e., locking components whose movement is limited or restrained by the duct itself. Such captured components are extremely expensive to manufacture in short production runs, and the high degree of detail required for a good lock is not obtainable through traditional lay-up or rotational molding processes. Similarly, injection molding, while sufficient for producing highly-detailed termination structures, is not capable of producing in-situ captured components.
Furthermore, known captured components are often configured as simple threaded collars that interface with a mating female threaded duct segment. While easy to actuate, such systems are undesirable in that the locking force between the interconnected duct segments is highly variable, and greatly depends upon the amount of torque applied during assembly. This variability is unsatisfactory in certain contexts, including military and aircraft applications.
Accordingly, there is a need for interconnect methods that provide advanced locking geometries with known locking force and improved clearance for actuation. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.